May 12, 2015

The accompanying video shows a 35-foot whale appropriately nicknamed “Windy” directing four blows toward six passengers aboard Legacy, a 30-foot charter boat that operates around the San Juan Islands.

One of Windy’s gusts was so powerful that it blew the camera off a selfie-stick, and the camera fell into the sea.

Windy the humpback whale breaches as if to say goodbye; photo by Heather MacIntyre/Legacy Charters

Said naturalist Heather MacIntyre: “And as we laughed and yelled with joy, she seemed to take great enjoyment out of exhaling on us, and would position herself so we would get the full blow when she let loose!”

Windy is a seasonal visitor to the area and was spotted Saturday in the Haro Strait between San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island.

The whale is famously boat friendly and hurried to Legacy after the initial sighting, about 200 yards away.

“We even started waving to her because she would continually roll to the side so that she could look up at us,” MacIntyre said. “After we started waving, she would wave her six-foot long pectoral fin in response. I mean, these are the encounters that rewrite the text books.”

Windy concluded the hour-long encounter by breaching twice, as if to announce that it was time for her to go.

May 07, 2015

A whale shark recently decided to nudge and loiter around a charter boat for four-plus hours off Australia’s Northern Territory, so of course one of the crew was compelled to jump in and ride the critter.

The nighttime encounter occurred 100 miles west of Darwin, and at one point the whale shark, which was feeding with its mouth open, bumped into a 15-foot tender tied to the mother ship.

“He ain’t real smart. Lucky he’s pretty,” one of the men can be heard saying in the accompanying footage.

The boat was from Cannon Charters and the commentary is from Benny “the Bushman” Sambrooks, a guide who seems to be the person jumping in to swim briefly with the whale shark.

Whale sharks are the world’s largest fish, reaching lengths of about 40 feet. They’re found in tropical seas around the world, but their migration patterns remain mysterious.

Fortunately for Sambrooks, the sharks feed largely on plankton and are harmless to humans.

May 05, 2015

Surfers can cut lots of time off their paddle-outs if they venture onto the rocks and jump off closer to the lineup.

But it can be a tricky, embarrassing, and even painful experience when the ocean is not given the respect it demands.

The accompanying footage, captured at Manly Beach, Australia, has gone viral since it was posted to Facebook this week by Peter Matthews.

It shows a young surfer attempting the precarious rock jump and failing badly as people watch and commentate from behind the camera.

The surfer fails to make it over the first wave, which washes him into a small pool, and as he gets back onto his feet with his board in hand, and tries to regain his footing, a second wave sends him shoreward and bounces him off the rocks.

At 45 seconds, as a third wave approaches, a woman can be heard saying, “Oh no… there he goes. Bye-bye!”

Ultimately, however, the surfer scrambles onto the safety of a large rock, looking dejected, and starts walking to shore.

It’s unclear if he rode any waves on this day, but if he did it was with bumps and bruises, and with a battered ego.